Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [114]
Then she’d tell those wretched refugees that they had to go. She couldn’t be expected to have strangers living with her when she was having a baby. Where was Alan? If he was letting that Trixie make up to him … Bella didn’t like the feeling that thinking about seeing Alan kissing Trixie gave her, so she decided to ignore it. Alan would have to start giving her more housekeeping, of course. She would have to buy lots of things for the baby – and for herself.
Francine looked anxiously at her watch.
‘Vi said she’d be here at two and it’s half-past now.’
‘She’s probably been delayed,’ said Jean. She was every bit as anxious as Francine, although she was trying very hard not to show it.
‘If she doesn’t come I’m going to go over there and see her.’
Jean’s anxiety grew as she heard the desperation in Fran’s voice. ‘She will come, Fran, I’m sure of it,’ she tried to sooth her.
‘It certainly put the wind up her when I telephoned her and told her that if she didn’t I’d be over there. Edwin’s probably told her not to let me into the house. He never liked me, and he certainly doesn’t approve of me.’
‘Sam reckons Edwin looks down on all of us,’ Jean told her, and then paused, wanting to warn Francine not to expect too much from Vi or to get her hopes up too high, but worried that if she did she might only make matters worse. ‘Vi’s changed, Fran. You’ll see that for yourself, you not having seen her for so long. I suppose it’s only natural, what with Edwin’s doing so well for himself.’
‘You always did defend her, Jean.’
‘She means well, but she likes having her own way. She always has, and she doesn’t take kindly to being criticised.’
Francine pounced immediately, demanding sharply, ‘You don’t think I should be doing this, do you?’
Her voice might sound sharp but Jean could hear the telltale emotional break in it. Her heart ached for Fran, but she knew what Vi could be like. The truth was that it was little Jack himself she was most worried about – and about whom she felt so much guilt. She struggled to find the right words to calm Francine down and yet at the same time acknowledge her own sympathy for her.
‘I didn’t think it was right them sending Jack away myself,’ she told her truthfully, ‘but you know what Vi’s like once someone gets her back up. She wouldn’t even give me his address so I could send him his Christmas presents. Said I had to give them to her and she’d send them. That did shock me, her not having him back home for Christmas,’ Jean admitted, ‘but—’
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ Francine stopped her. ‘You’re going to remind me that Vi is the one who has the right to say where he should go and what he should do.’
Jean looked at her, her heart filled with pain for her. ‘Vi and Edwin are his parents, love.’
‘Yes, I know that. And I’ve no room to talk, I know. It’s just—’ she broke off as they heard the front doorbell.
‘That will be Vi now,’ said Jean. ‘I’ll go and let her in.’
‘About time, Jean. I’ve been standing here for ages,’ said Vi sharply.
‘You’ve only just rung the bell,’ Jean told her twin mildly.
‘I really haven’t got time for this, what with all I’ve got to do. I’m the second in charge at our WVS now, you know, and I have responsibilities.’
Jean thought privately that no responsibility could be greater than the one a woman owed her child but she knew better than to say so.
Vi was on the attack the minute she walked into the kitchen, refusing to be parted from her expensive coat. She might be smartly dressed in her plum-coloured Jaegar skirt and toning twinset, but she had thickened out over the years, much more than Jean had herself, and in Jean’s eyes Vi looked nowhere near as elegant as Fran. Say what you liked, their younger sister stood out a mile as someone who had lived a different life, in her black woollen dress with its white collar and cuffs. Fran looked so bandbox smart she could have stepped right out of the pages of one of those expensive magazines that Vi boasted about reading.
Both Vi and Francine looked out of place in her kitchen, Jean thought. You’d never have